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Response of the UCI to a report from AFLD relating to anti- doping activities at the 2009 Tour de France PART 1: GENERAL COMMENTS The concept of partnership

The UCI is striking back at the French anti-doping agency AFLD, which earlier this month accused the UCI of giving Astana special treatment at the Tour de France.

Basque-backed Euskaltel-Euskadi is trying to turn the page on a season of potentially fatal doping scandals that plagued the team during 2009. High-profile doping positives involving Iñigo Landaluze and Tour de France stage-winner Markel Astarloza nearly scuttled the team, but backers are supporting the team’s efforts to refurbish the squad with younger riders.

Columbia-HTC will be bringing two former Tour Down Under winners to the 2010 edition of the race, which will be held January 17-24, starting in Adelaide. German Andre Greipel (the 2008 winner) and Australian Michael Rogers (2002 winner) are in the Columbia-HTC line-up the team announced on Friday. Greipel spent months on the sidelines after crashing during the third stage of this year's Tour Down Under, dislocating his shoulder and suffering a deep cut on his elbow, which required minor surgery. "After Greipel's mishap at the race this year we are pleased he will be

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Find tricks and treats at the Xilinx campus on October 31st. The tech campus will host the The Blue Sky Velo Cup – a spectator-friendly cyclocross event that will bring entertainment and the nation’s best cyclocross racing to the Front Range . Free to all spectators, this is a must-see for fans of Halloween and cycling alike!

The U.S. professional road championships will return to Greenville, South Carolina, next year, September 18-19. The dates are about three weeks later than prior years, slotting the race into a busy month that includes the Tour of Missouri, two UCI ProTour events in Canada, and the world road championships in Australia.

Will he stay or will he go? If you ask the Kazakhs, Tour de France winner Alberto Contador is staying in an Astana jersey in 2010. The ongoing saga of the future of Contador took another turn this week when officials said the two-time Tour champion isn’t going anywhere and that he will be held to finishing out the third year of his three-year contract. The latest twist came when Nikolai Proskurin, president of the Kazakh cycling federation, stated that “Contador will race in an Astana jersey next year. There are no problems.”

You got ‘em, we wanna see ‘em. Send us your sweet mountain-bike related photos. So figure on some showing and, if you want, some telling.

Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson said he never intended to hurt a pair of cyclists who hit the back of his car on the Fourth of July 2008. He told a court Wednesday that he stopped to try to take a picture of the riders after a verbal confrontation, and said he wakes up every night thinking about the incident that led to him being charged with assault with a deadly weapon. “I’m not happy anyone suffered injuries,” Thompson told defense attorney Peter Swarth in Los Angeles Superior Court. He denied telling a police officer that he meant to teach the injured cyclists a lesson.

Australia's Cadel Evans said Thursday he is fed up of being the nearly man of the Tour de France and is more determined than ever to land cycling's greatest race. Evans has been dogged by doubt after finishing runner-up in the Tour in 2007 and 2008 and only managing a trouble-plagued 30th place in this year's event. "I am tired of being known as the bloke who finishes second in the Tour de France," Evans said. "I had a lot of bad luck this year but I am already looking ahead to next year and am more determined than ever to win it, I won't be satisfied until I have."

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Win a one-of-a-kind Lynskey, valued at $7,000, for only $10 You've got nothing to lose with a $10 donation to the Breast Cancer Fund, but you could win big with that same $10. Speedgoat is raffling off a bike that's beyond compare (seriously, this is the only one of its kind) and every cent of each $10 ticket sold will go to the Breast Cancer Fund. Timed to coincide with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Speedgoat encourages you take a moment and ask yourself if $10 is enough to put toward eliminating environmental and other preventable causes of breast cancer.

Michael Barry will move from Columbia-HTC to the British-based Team Sky for 2010, and the Canadian says his racing role on the new team will be similar, although he says it's still a little odd to be one of the old-timers. "I'll be one of the veteran riders, which is kind of strange," said Barry, who will be 35 next year. "The years pass quickly." Barry has worked closely with younger riders on Columbia in recent years, and he'll fulfill a similar role at his new team.

Carlos Sastre insists he still hasn’t made up his mind on his 2010 calendar. The 2008 Tour de France champion was dismayed to see media reports that he was going to skip the Tour in favor of racing the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España. “My surprise was in capital letters, because I never said what is being bandied about in the headlines, which, according to them, it appears I have decided what races I’ll do in 2010,” Sastre said in a press statement Wednesday.

Talking on your cell or texting is now illegal around here. It may not stop people from reading while driving, though!

Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson took the stand in his defense on Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles in his trial on assaulting cyclists in 2008. Thompson answered preliminary questions from his defense attorney, Peter Swarth; Thompson is expected to resume testimony Wednesday, when he is likely to be asked about two or three incidents involving cyclists on his home street, Los Angeles County's Mandeville Canyon Road.

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Team Type 1 will start 2010 _ it's third year in the pro peloton — with most of its riders returning and a few new additions. The team, which includes several riders with Type 1 diabetes, will have an expanded schedule next year, with plans to race in North and South America, as well as Europe, Asia and Africa. Team co-founder Phil Southerland will continue as the team’s chief executive officer but will not compete professionally after being sidelined much of the past two seasons by a leg injury.

Team Type 1’s 2010 Roster:

How do I remove a seatpost stuck in my frame?

Maureen Bruno-Roy (MM Racing-Seven Cycles) and Jeremy Powers (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) lead the USA Cycling cyclocross points series following this weekend's races. Bruno-Roy, from Arlington, Massachusetts, won both days at the weekend's Verge New England Series races in New Gloucester, Maine. Powers, from Hadley, Massachusetts, was third at Sunday's USGP race in Louisville, Kentucky, and has scored a series of wins and top finishes this season, including going three-for-three at the Cincinnati Cyclocross Festival.

Zack McDonald (Classic Cycles) got his second win of the SCX series and Kristi Berg (Redline Bicycles) continued her domination at a chilly but mostly dry Ft. Steilacoom this weekend.

Press Release

Press Release

Press Release

The former team of disgraced cheaters Riccardo Riccò and Leonardo Piepoli rolls on in 2010, surviving a difficult struggle to try to erase the doping stigma from its name. The former Saunier Duval squad will continue in 2010 thanks to the arrival of the new title sponsor Footon.

Michael Rasmussen is heading back to a European-based team. That’s according to Rasmussen, 35, who confirmed to the Danish newspaper Politiken that he’s poised to announce his return to a European team. “I won’t say which team it is until everything is settled. I expect it to be before the Oct. 31 deadline set by the UCI,” Rasmussen told the Danish daily. “By February, I hope to line up for the Ruta del Sol.”

The Competitor Group announced today that Columbia Sportswear will become the title sponsor of the popular Muddy Buddy Ride & Run Series. The agreement includes naming rights of the 18-event Columbia Muddy Buddy Series, as well as the Columbia Mini Muddy Buddy and designates Columbia as the exclusive apparel and footwear sponsor.

The route for the 2010 Giro d’Italia — which was unveiled on Italian national television by race director Angelo Zomegnan in Milan last Saturday night — has elicited much praise from both the European media and the racers.

Truckee, California may not get the attention of its neighbor, Lake Tahoe, but the riding around the historic railroad town is worth a day or two.

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As the 2009 season draws to a close, a few companies and teams are extending their efforts across the world in various charitable endeavors. Kelly Benefit Strategies riders traveled to Africa in support of World Bicycle Relief, and Kona’s Africabikes program is reaching farther than ever, partnering with Roadmonkey Adventure philanthropy to provide bikes to students in Vietnam. Four Kelly riders traveled halfway around the world earlier this month, not for a race, but to see firsthand the impact of their team’s season-long fundraising effort for World Bicycle Relief.

I am a professional bicycle courier in Charlotte, North Carolina. The safest way to ride a bicycle in any traffic is to behave exactly as you would in an automobile.

Carlos Sastre likes what he sees for next year’s Giro d’Italia. With a climber’s course laden with monster ascents, including the Mortirolo, the Gavia, Zoncolan and Plan de Corones, the punishing Giro course could well tempt Sastre back to the Italian tour in 2010.

Portland Bicycle Studio's Molly Cameron made it two in row Sunday by taking the Men's A race at Cross Crusade No. 4, while Emily Van Meter (Hudz-Subaru) notched her first win of the season in the Women's A race. The skies finally opened up and dumped enough precipitation to bring out the mud for the first time this Cross Crusade season, and the rain had riders slipping and sliding over the pancake-flat course at the Washington County Fairgrounds in Hillsboro.